Poisons and Toxicology: A Crime Writer’s Guide to the Quiet Weapon
Poison is the quiet weapon, and as such, the use of it in a crime story plot makes for some of the best crime writing there is. If you want to write a poisoning that holds up, the trick is understanding how these cases actually get solved, because that’s where your suspense is hiding. […]
The Forensic File: Lizzie Borden
This file examines the 1892 Fall River murders of Andrew and Abby Borden through the physical evidence and the forensic methods of the period. The narrative account of the household, the trial, and the aftermath appears in the companion post, Lizzie Borden: The House That Kept Its Secrets. The purpose here is to walk the […]
Lizzie Borden: The House That Kept Its Secrets
Lizzie Borden: Maiden of the Hatchet One hundred and thirty-four years ago, on the morning of August 4, 1892, the most talked-about murders in American history happened inside one of the plainest houses on the street. Ninety-two Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts was a narrow, hardworking home, and by late morning it held […]
The Emotional Life of an Investigator: Six Questions Worth Sitting With
It’s High Time Your Hero and Villain See A Therapist If you are struggling through your current WIP, it may be time for a little therapy session with your main characters. One of my chief goals as a storyteller is to create heroes, villains, and central characters who stay with you long after you close […]
The Forensic File: Richard Ramirez
Time of Death, Done Right: What Really Sets the Window
Somewhere on a crime show on television tonight, a medical examiner will dutifully glance at a body and announce that death occurred at precisely 10:42 p.m. It is a great dramatic dialogue line. It is also pure fiction, because it teaches readers and writers to expect a precision the science cannot offer. The truth is […]
Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker’s Shadow
In the summer of 1985, Southern California learned to fear its own windows. People who hadalways slept with the screens open against the heat began locking everything, checking latchestwice, and lying awake listening. The reason had a name the newspapers gave him beforeanyone knew his real one: the Night Stalker. For more than a year, […]
The Crime Writing Course I’ve Taught for Fourteen Years Is Finally Yours
Dear Readers, There is a moment I have watched happen in workshop rooms for fourteen years, and it still gets me every single time. A writer is stuck on a body, cause of death, evidence and motive. We need a victim for the story to work, but the scene sits flat on the page, more […]
Time of Death, How Investigators Really Pin Down the Hour
There is a line that shows up in crime fiction so often it has become a kind of comfort food:the medical examiner crouches over a body, glances at a thermometer, and announces,“Time of death, nine forty-seven p.m.” It is satisfying, it is tidy, it serves the story world. But it’s not how time of death […]
The Forensic File, David Berkowitz
When the Son of Sam case is discussed, attention usually turns to the demonic-dog claim,the taunting letters, and the question of motive. Those belong to the realm of psychologyand speculation, and they are the subject of the narrative companion to this file. This file sets motive aside and examines the Son of Sam forensic evidence […]
